[For Sarah] Crazy Town

[ms_legendary]

My name is Nikita. Seven years ago I was taken off of Death Row and trained to be an assassin by a covert unit of the government called Division. Almost four years ago, I escaped and I've been hunted ever since. I fought back, taking apart Division missions one by one until they were the ones on the run. Twelve days ago somehow, someone took me out of the game and put me here on Tabula Rasa. They say there's no way off this island, no way out, but they said that about Division too...

Nikita sprints along the northeast edge of the island, low to the ground, and comes up with her back against one of the pylons. She waits, controlling her breath, for one of the IPD patrols from the outpost or one of the more military ITF people to come to investigate the perimeter alarm she has to have triggered. She waits the full seven minutes that she's allotted for a slow arrival from the IPD outpost that powers the invisible fence, and while she does, carefully moves around the pylon to learn what she can from it.

No one comes, and the security devices in the pylons aren't recognizable. They clearly generate some kind of electrical pulse, but how high the charge and what it targets isn't yet clear. Unless they have hidden ATVs or helicopters, she has twenty minutes before someone getting the alert on the other side of the island can get to her here moving at high speed.

Stepping away from the pylon, Nikita picks up a rock and throws it at the space between two of them. The rock soars through unaffected. She throws another at the pylon itself, still to no effect. She tries a balled up bundle of tall weeds next, watches a bird soar through at the height of the top of the pylons and a monkey swing through above them. Nothing. Either they're not on (not likely, the power feeds from the IPD outpost appear to be on) or they're not designed to keep things out, but to keep them in.

Like Division.

Yes, in twelve days she has heard the rumors that there are dinosaurs beyond the fence, but that's insane. There can't be dinosaurs, even in a place as crazy as this island. It has to be a cover for something. Something with people they don't want getting out into the general population. A research facility, a high tech observation station, a training center for recruits, quarantine, transportation out...

You terrorize people with the impossible for one reason and one reason only, in Nikita's experience. To keep them from seeing something else you don't want them to see. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Nikita's never been good at following instructions. She's off to see the Wizard or maybe the flying monkeys.

Comments

[suncagecurse]

"Or..." Sarah starts, looking at Nina like she might be crazy. Although Sarah had asked if she had any recklessly brilliant ideas. This seems to qualify for half that anyway. "We drop the grenade from where we are, then while they're out cold, we both go down and run like hell. Just a thought."

[ms_legendary]

Nikita shakes her head. "You'd think that would be the best solution, but it's always better to have your ace in reserve," she explains briskly. "We could run into something worse trying to get out of here, and if I can get us free without expending it--" Which hadn't been in her instructions, but seems self-evident: don't throw the grenade if you don't need to. "We're that much safer."

She doesn't want to concede, even mentally, the possibility that worse might be larger dinosaurs, but stun grenades work fine on armed pursuit, too.

"Tell me when you're ready."

Honestly, Sarah's plan would work too, but Nikita's oddly unwilling to risk killing a dozen dinosaurs if they can escape by her killing just one.

[suncagecurse]

Sarah drops the grenade back into her bag. Better to have both hands free to climb than risk both falling and dropping their 'ace' trying to do things one-handed. She still thinks her idea is better, mostly because it doesn't involve Nina taking on a swarm of dinosaurs with only a knife.

"Do one thing for me?" she asks, eyebrow rising. "Don't die."

[ms_legendary]

I'm already dead, comes the regular reminder from inside her head and the deep, welling ache in her chest. I'm dead without him.

She quirks a small, cocky smile that's real for immediate purposes but as false as half a dozen identity cards in a drawer in their house. "Don't take this wrong, but I'm planning on not dying. For me." For Alex (Annie), Wolf, Julie, Jason.

You have no idea what it would do to me to-- Shut up. Shut up. Shut up, she tells her brain, then pulls her knife and starts her descent.

[suncagecurse]

Even better, Sarah thinks, but the woman was willingly taking on a bunch of carnivores, specifying had been the right thing to do. "As long as we're in agreement."

Nina begins on her way down, and Sarah gives her a chance to get a little ahead of her before following slowly. She wants to be ready, in position to move as quickly as possible, so Nina spends as little time facing off the dinosaurs as necessary.

[ms_legendary]

As soon as she leaves the safety of the branches, Nikita's world narrows down to the woman behind her she's got to protect and the dinosaurs she's protecting her from. They're small and fast, but teeth and claws will take a lot longer to kill her than one well-aimed gun.

When she gets low enough, she wraps one arm around the trunk of the tree and dangles a foot down toward them. The lizards jump and she yanks her foot away. Their jaws snap on nothing. She shinnies down another foot. Lather, rinse, repeat - damn! Razor sharp teeth slice through her boot to her foot. Flesh wound, stings like a bitch, but won't slow her down. The scent of blood stirs the predators though and they're a boiling snapping mass below.

One more time, but this time when it leaps, she's ready. A downward slice behind the neck and the dinosaurs screams and falls. The others turn on it in a frenzy and Nikita leaps down to set, slash and guard. Her fist and feet blur, knife bites, convincing the smaller ones she's a viable threat.

"Go!" she shouts and blocks an attack with a forearm strike beneath the jaw.

[suncagecurse]

Sarah's only keeping enough distance between them not to be in the way, and when Nina gives the word, she moves, running as soon as her feet hit the ground. One thing the ARC gave her plenty of practice at...running from dinosaurs. As she runs, she manages to get the grenade out of her bag again, so it's ready when, or if, she needs it.

She heads in what she thinks is the shortest distance toward the boundary, glancing back when she's fairly sure the way in front of her is clear. The last thing either of them need is for her to trip over something, becoming even easier prey for hungry dino mob, but she needs to keep an eye on how things are going for Nina too.

[ms_legendary]

Another dinosaur lunges for her and its claws slice across her hip when she meets it with a roundhouse kick and parries teeth with blade. The knife sinks into soft palate and must nick against the brain, because it seizes, dropping away - not dead, but maybe dying.

She'll regret it later, apologize later, light a pyre or something. Later. Now, one dead, one dying dinosaur is enough to make her a lot less interesting and when the others swarm their newly fallen fellow, she slides away first behind the tree, then into the brush, and then deeper into the jungle.

When she's sure she's not being followed, she angles her path toward Sarah and the electric fence and runs.

[suncagecurse]

Once she sees Nina get clear of the dinosaurs, Sarah doesn't plan on stopping until they're both on the other side of the electric enclosure. But when they are, with the dinos out of sight and hopefully still intent on their feast, she slows, breathing heavier but not out of breath. Thank Becker, for insisting she do more running.

"Are you all right?"

[ms_legendary]

When Nikita drops out of her run to lean up against the pylon, she's still half waiting for the ITF or IPD to come down on them out of nowhere. It's why she keeps her back to cement, eyes on Sarah but ears on everything. She's breathing harder than she should be because her ribs aren't fully healed, and her foot hurts like a bitch, but compared to some missions, she has hardly a scratch on her.

"As long as dinosaurs don't carry rabies or tetanus, I'm fine," she says, wry. "Even then, I should be okay. I'm current with all my vaccinations and then some."

[suncagecurse]

We should get that foot cleaned and bandaged, though. I hate to think what might be living in a dinosaur's mouth." Sarah hasn't had need to go by the clinic yet, thank goodness, so she doesn't know how well stocked it might be. But not letting an injury get infected is always better than the alternative.

[ms_legendary]

"In my experience, clinics on remote tropical islands don't tend to be much more sterile than the island's animals," Nikita answers somewhat untruthfully, but it spares her the cliche and off-putting what do you mean 'we', science gal?

"I've got supplies where I stay. So, thanks, but I'll be fine. Are you okay?"

[suncagecurse]

"It must be nice, showing up here with a fully stocked first aid kit," Sarah muses, only gently pointed. Nina's injury needs tending, but she's also a grown woman, and can take her own chances if that's the way she wants to be.

"I'm fine. Curious, but unhurt. So 'bout like usual then."